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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

can someone direct me to step by step instructions on how to download, compile, and implement a new kernel.

i've been fed up with redhat/fedora/suse/mandrake and am ready commit to debian until i can get it to work (have attempt a couple of installs that were thwarted by my nvidia geforce 2 - though i found a couple more resources for that). i can get through the install fine (except for g-card, of course), but i feel that not being able to compile my own kernel and apps from source is really holding my back from not going back to MS. i love apt-get as well.
basically what i'm looking for here is post deb 3 install command line instructions; ie:

1. wget ftp or http path/whatever.org/latest_stable_kernel
*what directory to save it to, and whatever other apts i may need to apt-get

2. if tar is needed, what are the best options to use ( -xv... )

3. what to use to compile it and it's -options

4. how to implement it and lose the old kernel

hopefully this is already out there somewhere.
- this would be greatly appreciated by someone who desperately wants to get away from MS products.

well the above link is a guide i wrote in step by step fashion with each step explained ...
as of tarballs it depends ...
if you have a file ending in tar.bz2 then use
tar -jxvf filename.tar.bz2
if it ends in tar.gz then you type
tar -zxvf filename.tar.gz

as of the other general questions i think you get your answers in some way shape of form in the link above ..

/usr/src/linux is usualy a symlink to your linux source tree(its not required and in reality is only there so some exretnal kernel modules (like alsa, or bestcrypt or some other moduels that come from outside the kernel) can just guess the source is /usr/src/linux it also makes it so you type less),

note :when you start configureing the kernel be sure to read the help for every option even if you think ou knwo what it is (just to be sure you knwo what it is, and what other options it might require you to ahve set/unset)

it appears the next instruction you give is "file linux". i get an error returned : "linux: can't stat 'linux' (No such file or directory)."
i moved on from there and tried your next command : "rm linux". in this case i get the following error message: "rm: cannotremove 'linux' : No such file or directory"
is there supposed to be a "linux" directory in /usr/src/ ?
i don't want to miss anything here; what am i doing wrong?

as you can see in the directory listing you don't have anything in there, so thats why you couldn't use the "file" command nor the "rm" command cause nothing is there to run them on ...
so no your not doing anything wrong, all that that meant is that you didn't have your kernel source install for whatever kernel your currently running ...

so you should have just skipped to the step that states :
tar -zxvf linux-x.x.x.tar.gz
**"unpack the tarball (new kernel)"**